Fix a Scan

Fixing a Scan in PaintShop Pro

See the youtube video on this topic:  Make Shop Pro - Fix a Scan

Take a very poor scan, and be able to pullout a clean black and white image of the stick figure shape.  The goal was to not do any hand drawn fixes or editing, but to use menu adjustments for the whole process.  In this way, this process can be used for similar fixes of much more complex images.

Creating Luminance Separation

The goal of the first set of steps is to create separation between the stick figure and its background so that we can later make a clean selection of the stick figure using the Magic Wand.

1)  First, enhance the white region using the Adjust > Brightness Contrast > Highlights Midtone Shadow

2)  Image > Negative Image

3)  Next, use the Adjust >Brightness Contrast > Levels to create an initial level of separation between the stick man and the background.
4)  Adjust > Add/Remove Noise > Edge Preserving Smooth to nullify the luminance noise within the stick figure lines.
5)  After using Edge Preserving Smooth, we can see a distinct set of luminance regions (black lines is the left hump, and red background is the right hump).  By using levels to enhance that separation even more, we'll have the isolation we need to do the selection.

Now we have a nice bright image where the separation between the pure black ink and the bright red background is much more distinct.

Cutout of Selection

This next section covers the process of using a selection to cut out the stick figure shape out of a pure black raster layer.

1)  Create a New Raster Layer filled fully with black, then hide that layer

2)  Use the Magic Wand Selection to select the stick figure on the Background layer.  You may need to Shift+Click to add the mouth and eyes.

4)  Selection > Modify > Remove Specs and Holes   (if necessary)
5)  Selection > Invert
3)  Select the all-black Raster 1 layer and unhide it

6)  Press the Delete key to remove all regions in the selection

At this stage whats remains is the outline of the stick figure in the Raster 1 layer.  Delete the background layer and Merge Flatten the remaining layer.  In the end you'll have a nice clean image of a stick figure.